★★★★☆

What makes someone have 'high potential'?

Hidden Potential by Adam Grant explores the science of what makes someone an effective achiever. What is it that enabled them to be the way they are, is it having a strong character? Being a disciplined, super serious, no funny business type of person. Or is it the way they approach problems, finding the right mentors, the right methods of learning, turning the daily grind into a source of daily joy. Maybe high achievement is pre-defined based on the parameters given to the individual, if someone was born in a first-world country going to the best schools and having private tutors, you would probably think they would achieve greater things than someone who grew up in a third-world country without access to any of that stuff.

I'd like to expand a bit on what was brought forward in the book, while relating it to my past and current experiences.

The characteristics of someone who has high potential

They behave like a sponge

To achieve rapid growth, you need to absorb information like a 🧽 sponge . For example, when I’m learning a new programming language or technology my aim is to get exposed to as much as possible. I like to create notes, read case studies, and study diagrams to build a large mental model and have the resources written someone like notion to refer back to whenever I need them.

In addition to absorbing information like a sponge, I think we also need to be proactive in the way we apply that knowledge. If we don’t learn from our mistakes we will make little to no progress. We have to get comfortable with not knowing everything, in other words, we have to get comfortable being uncomfortable to grow.

They are creatures of discomfort

No one is ever an expert at first, they all started from somewhere. Learning takes time and skill, along the way there will be uncertainty. The possibility of making a mistake and making a fool of yourself can hold you back. Being able to put yourself out there without that fear allows you to focus on what serves you, and what doesn’t. It enables quick feedback loops allowing faster improvement as you allow for criticism to drive your development further rather than tear it down.

I resonate with the idea of ‘doing’ things before you feel ready. If you wait until you are fully comfortable with something, opportunities will pass you by, Opportunities for rapid growth, guiding points, advice and much more can be missed. The same applies to teaching, we often think to teach something we need to be experts on the matter. In reality, sometimes teaching something is the best way to learn it.

When I took my Solutions Architect Exam I didn’t want to take my test until I felt fully ‘ready’. But the issue was that I was spending more time overpreparing, I knew enough already to take the exam, but the anxiety of ‘what if I don’t know enough and I fail’ was holding me back from taking it. Once I let that go and figured that the worst-case scenario was I failed the exam, knew what I needed to study for next time and take it again in a month or two. This ultimately was the best decision for me as I was able to pass the exam without much difficulty as I prepared a lot. I had to be willing to miss (to fail) to hit my target (pass). 🎯

They seek mentorship

Nothing accelerates learning and growth faster than a good mentor or coach 📈. Having the right coach and mentors can take us to new levels, they help guide us, and shape us into the best versions of ourselves. However finding the right people is more complicated than it seems.

The right coach who is knowledgeable knows our current capabilities and is credible sounds like the best-case scenario, but it’s a bit more complicated than that.

Finding the right mentor will always depend on the task at hand. For certain tasks you may need someone with credibility, it's easier to take car advice than a mechanic than say a sleazy car salesman who's just trying to cut a check. For someone to give you the best advice, they need to have context of your current situation and a good understanding of your capabilities. Otherwise they will just spew out words that may not be applicable to you. If they're to far off from your experience i.e They're a high-level expert and your just beginning, they may not be the best fit to teach you as they cannot relate to your experience. It may have been several years since they were in your shoes, and they may even get frustrated if your not getting it right away.

No one’s experiences will be the same, so a mentor cannot step by step tell you everything you need to know but their story is integral for shaping your own. Whenever you get a chance to talk to someone that is doing something you wish you were doing, I recommend actively asking them about the key points that shaped their journey. While it won't be directly applicable to your sitatuion, it will come in handy as you 🧭 navigate through your own path.

Finding the right mentor boils down to finding the right person for the task. Someone who is credible, knows our current capabilities and to a certain extent more experienced than us.

They have the right scaffolding

When reading into what makes a person stay disciplined and motivated to a task, I was intrigued by this idea of Scaffolding. When we think of scaffolding we think of it in the literal sense; it's a supportive and temporary structure that helps workers reach heights they wouldn't have been able to before.

They know when to take breaks

It is the arch nemesis of the high-achiever. You can pour hours and hours into something but there comes a breaking point to where you can't mentally and physically take anymore. You've probably heard of this concept before; burnout. Breaks help you rejuvenate, come back with a clear mind and fresh pair of eyes. As a programmer, I've dealt with this time and time again. Sometimes I'll be stuck and so fixated on a problem, when I absolutely need to take a break I will. Coming back to face the problem after taking a break I'll figure it out right away and think "Aw! It was so obvious." That is the issue we're trying to avoid; we'll usually only take a break when we need to, but sometimes taking that break before it gets to that point will actually help us in the end.

To expand on that idea a little more, sometimes the best way forward is to go backwards...

Progress is never strictly linear

When you create a mental model of what progress looks like on a chart, you might picture a line sloping upwards. In reality, progress has hills and valleys, loops and turns, ups and downs. It's a wild ride, and it's never the same for everyone. And although knowing your stagnate is a key skill to have, it's only half the battle. Knowing what to do to get out of it is integral to continue onwards. There will be times where nothing feels like it's going right, we can't push further, we cannot make any more progress. It's good to take a step back, reevaluate your path. Maybe you need to switch the direction your moving in and this can be done in many ways. For example, being a Software Engineer 💻 is a never ending learning process. There's always new technologies coming out, updates, patches & fixes. New processes arise, new manifesto's in order to build software. Staying on-top of everything is a daunting task and near impossible. It's important to recognize what's important to you and to focus on that. If your a dedicated Back-End Engineer I wouldn't say to study Front-End, Dev Ops, or Cloud ☁️. But if your goal is to become a Full-Stack developer then it is worth learning. It all depends on what your goals are, and it takes personal reflection and deep thinking to figure out what are your needs.

The Verdict 📖

Learning is not a one-size-fits-all solution. Aquiring any skill or achieving any goal is a complex process; every individuals journey will be different. Developing the right character skills, setting up the correct scaffolding, and learning from others to drive decisions of our own all play important parts in lives. I quite enjoyed the insights Adam Grant gave to us in this book regarding learning how to learn better. Some of the information presented is not necessarily new, and the parts of reforming the school systems and job interviews was not too interesting for me. I still found tons of value in finding out what makes High Potential individual's tick.

I would reccomend this book if you're feeling stagnant, or looking for better & new ways to make learning fun again!